Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Herzog brothers speak August 2nd

Among the terrific lineup of speakers for the Germans from Russia convention in Casper are the Herzog brothers, Alex and Michael, who will focus on the trek of a German-Russian family from the Black Sea region of Russia to Kansas, which was largely a destination for German-Russians from the Volga Region.
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Their presentation is From Steppe to Steppe - From Black Sea to Volga-German Kansas: Comparing Three Memoirs from a 20th Century Immigrant Family. It's one of several concurrent sessions scheduled for 8:30 a.m., Saturday, August 2nd at the Parkway Plaza Hotel in Casper. It will cover how memoirs can be produced and will compare memories of one event experienced by four family members. The Herzog presentation will be in Ballroom B. It will be repeated at 2:00 p.m. Saturday in the Tiffany Room.

The Herzog brothers are direct descendants of Black Sea settlers from Alsace, which is now a part of France. In 1944 the family was transplanted on Hitler’s orders to Poland, where their father was inducted into the German armed forces. Their mother managed to move the family to Berlin in East Germany and finally to West Germany, where they were reunited with their father and in 1953 emigrated to the United States, thus avoiding the fate of so many of their relatives, who were deported to Siberia by the Soviets in 1945.

Alex Herzog was born in 1938 in Lichtenfeld (Ambrosyevo), a German village in Kutchurgan/Ukraine. He eventually earned an MA and did advanced graduate studies in mathematics in the United States. He had a long career with IBM and took early retirement in 1993 and is now a freelance and volunteer translator, primarily from German to English. Most of his many translations have been published by GRHC, GRHS and AHSGR. He is a member of both GRHS and AHSGR. He is married to Dr. Nancy Herzog. They live in Boulder, Colorado, and their three married children have given them seven grandchildren.

Michael Herzog was born in Romania in 1944 on the family trek out of the Ukraine. After the family arrived in the United States in 1953, Michael earned an MA in Germanic Languages and Literature and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. He is Professor of English and Senior Faculty Advisor to the Academic Vice President at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. He and his wife, Jean, a mental health counselor, live in Spokane. They have four children and four grandchildren.

1 comment:

paulvetter said...

I am sorry that I have to miss hearing the Herzog brothers speak.